


Distraction Tactics

by usernameapathy



Category: Tales of Berseria
Genre: F/F, Tales of Secret Santa 2020, Unresolved Sexual Tension, putting the 'slash' in slash fic, sparring match
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:46:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28477119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/usernameapathy/pseuds/usernameapathy
Summary: As they wait for the Scarlet Night in Meirchio, both Velvet and Eleanor need a distraction from their thoughts. A sparring match offers one....In, perhaps, more than one way.
Relationships: Velvet Crowe/Eleanor Hume
Comments: 7
Kudos: 29





	Distraction Tactics

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ArcanaXIX](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArcanaXIX/gifts).



> This was written for the Tales of Secret Santa 2020 fandom event. I wasn't totally sure what to do with the prompts provided at first, and I'm not entirely sure about the results either, but I still hope everyone enjoys it!

The snowflake drifted, wavering back and forth on the wind, towards one of Meirchio's colored lanterns. It was a bit larger than most, enough so that she could clearly see its asymmetric shape. After a few moments, it landed on the blue glass. The heat from inside was enough to melt it, and for one brief instant she could see as much as water trickled down the glass - then it was gone.

Velvet Crowe wasn't really into metaphors, but this one was hard to ignore.

_Except **I'm** not the only one who..._

"Magic tricks are a lot like storytelling," a light voice said. Velvet turned, somewhat involuntarily, to where Magilou and Laphicet sat on the front steps of a house a little further up the street. "You get the audience looking the wrong way, then zam! Punch 'em in the nose."

"What kind of storyteller punches people in the nose?" Laphicet exclaimed.

"It's a figure of speech, kiddo."

Laphicet smiled skeptically. "If you say so..."

Velvet looked away, trying to shake off the twinge she felt. _I'll face this later. I already know I will. I just... Right now, I need something else to think about..._

"Velvet?"

***

Eleanor Hume walked through the deserted streets of Meirchio, not really feeling the snowflakes that were occasionally blown against her exposed face. She tried not to let the emptiness of her surroundings bother her. Velvet had - of course - denied any concern for the citizens of Meirchio when she drove them off, but it had been about as convincing as any of her denials of her kinder feelings were: not at all. It had taken Eleanor a long time to see that, but now she couldn't help but find it rather... charming.

But Velvet also wasn't wrong that they _had_ ripped the villagers' lives away. And what truly ate at her was that there had been no way to avoid it. Even if their battle with the legates didn't affect the town directly, Eizen was sure that their use of the lifespring would cause Mount Killaraus to erupt sooner rather than later, and even if **that** didn't directly harm the town, Meirchio was completely dependent on the flamestone trade.

And yet... there also wasn't any way they could have avoided this. The only other option would have been to do nothing, and in that case the villagers lives' would have been taken away in an even more horrible fashion. Even for the people who weren't driven to immediately take their own lives, the Suppression was just death in a different form. She was still haunted by that little girl, the same age as Kamoana, back in Loegres, that they'd failed to save...

_How did we let it come to this?_

She looked up at the sound of voices. Magilou and Laphicet were sitting together on the front steps of a house, with the witch apparently teaching the young malak about card tricks from what she could overhear. (Eleanor did _not_ entirely approve, but it wasn't her business to comment.) Velvet was watching them from nearby, and the look on her face...

A conversation at night on the Van Eltia that she'd managed to put at the back of her mind came back to her.

"Velvet?"

The dark-haired woman turned to her. "What's up?"

"You, ah, looked troubled..."

("And that's new how?" she heard Magilou mutter. Laphicet shushed her, but Velvet didn't seem to notice anyway.)

Velvet looked away. "I'm fine. I've just got a lot on my mind." Her eyes darted briefly in Laphicet's direction - so briefly that Eleanor probably wouldn't have noticed if she hadn't been watching for it - then looked back down.

"Ah-" Eleanor half-lifted a hand. She knew exactly what was troubling Velvet, but that didn't help at all with coming up with something to do about it. _And I do want to do something about it. She may be a daemon, but she is my friend._

_Not that I'd **say** as much, but still..._

A thought came to her. 

"Want to fight?"

***

Velvet looked over at Eleanor to make sure she'd heard the exorcist right. "Sorry, did you say-"

"Fight?" Magilou butted in a chirpy voice. "Aren't you two actually getting along for once? Just got to keep that drama going, I guess-"

Velvet held up her human hand - "Be quiet, Magilou" - then looked back at Eleanor. "Are you talking about a sparring match or something?"

Eleanor clasped her own hands together. "Yeah. We have quite the battle ahead of us soon. It couldn't hurt to get in some more practice." Her mouth twitched in what Velvet could only call a mischievous grin. "Besides, you all say I've gotten a lot stronger than since we met. I'm thinking maybe that means I'm strong enough to finally beat you."

Velvet felt her own mouth start to lift at Eleanor's teasing tone. "Oh, you are _on,_ Miss Exorcist. Just don't start crying again when it doesn't work out that way."

Eleanor folded her arms. "Enjoy your overconfidence while you can, Lord of Calamity. I'll see you in the bathhouse."

"The bathhouse?" The baffled response came from not only her but Magilou and Laphicet as well, all of their voices overlapping. Eleanor looked slightly taken aback. 

"W-what? The common area has the largest open floor space in Meirchio, plus a few fixtures to serve as potential obstacles and make the terrain more interesting. I know the cold doesn't bother you, but I still thought it would just be simpler to practice indoors..."

Velvet waved her bandaged arm dismissively. "Fine, fine..."

***

The interior of the bathhouse's common area, outside the actual baths themselves, did indeed offer plenty of room to fight. It also featured large glass windows offering a panoramic view of Meirchio and the snow continuing to softly fall down on it from the early evening sky. Velvet had half-expected an audience to show up for their match, but Rokurou - the member of their party who'd probably be most interested - had secluded himself away with Kurogane to discuss some mysterious plan the two of them were cooking up, and no one else had expressed serious interest.

She turned away from the windows to see Eleanor pulling off her uniform jacket and rolling up her sleeves. An eyebrow raised.

"It's not that hot in here."

"Not now," the exorcist replied, "but I'm sure we'll get there. We can't all ignore hot and cold the way you can, Velvet..."

Her voice trailed off at the end, as though concerned ( _still_ concerned, because of _course_ she was) that the joke had been a bit too much, but Velvet hadn't really been paying attention in the first place. It was often easy for her to forget just how strong Eleanor was to be able to twirl that spear of hers around like a child's toy. Looking at her now, though, it was a bit more noticeable-

Velvet shook her head and focused back on Eleanor's face. "Right. So how do you want to do this?"

Eleanor rapped the butt of her spear against the tile floor. "How else? We spar until someone admits defeat!"

Velvet grinned as she let the muscles in her legs tense up, trying not to make it too obvious. "'Someone'? Still the optimist, aren't you-!"

She sprang upward, right arm thrust forward, and let the sword blade slide out of her bracer.

***

Eleanor wasn't exactly surprised anymore at how fast Velvet could move, but she also wasn't at the point where she could regard it with total equilibrium either. So as she snapped her spear up into a parry, she couldn't help but register admiration at the daemon's strike.

Sword blade rang on spear haft with a brief spark, and Eleanor also couldn't help but register admiration for her up-close perspective on Velvet - but that came with decidedly more mixed feelings. She'd resolved to more honestly confront her own feelings back once she'd actually decided to join Velvet and the others on this journey of her own free will, and that feeling had only been reinforced after seeing the hell that was the Suppression. But still. Velvet's clothing was just so... inappropriate!

And also _not_ helpful when it came to focusing on battle. She sprang backwards as Velvet spun around, her trailing mass of dark hair whizzing by so closely that Eleanor's nose was briefly tickled by a faint herbal scent. The spin ended with another sword thrust, but this time Eleanor caught it just behind her spear's head and shoved to the side, sending Velvet off-balance. That let her take the initiative when it came to launching attacks, and Eleanor wasted no time in doing just that.

"You realize... I know exactly what you're doing here," Velvet gritted out as she parried another blow.

"Of course you do! 'Know your foes and strike where they're weak', right?" Their blades clashed again.

"Not that." Velvet parried another attack. Eleanor was suspicious - she'd fallen onto the defensive way too easily, and she wasn't even using her claw at all. "What this whole sparring match is about. I told you I'm - hngh - fine! I'm facing exactly who I am."

"Then why haven't you talked with Laphicet yet?" Eleanor rammed the tip of her spear into a crack between two of the tiles and flipped upward, aiming a spinning kick at Velvet. The daemon sprang backward again, though, and her boots only grazed the edge of a tattered cloak. They both landed back on the ground and panted a moment. "Are you so intent on torturing yourself over your 'selfishness' that you don't even care what it is he actually thinks?"

Velvet frowned. "And what about you, huh? You know I heard you back there, before Rokurou cut you off. 'This is my fault, I offer my own soul'. What the hell was that?"

Before Eleanor could manage to word a proper reply to that, Velvet lunged forward with a kick. Eleanor readed her spear in anticipation of a blade springing out from the tip of Velvet's boot, but instead the daemon twisted in mid-air and her foot slammed straight into Eleanor's chest. The fabric of her uniform absorbed some of the hit for her, but her breath still expelled out painfully in an 'oof' as she slid backwards across the tiles, before using her spear to bring herself to a halt.

_This is not going well. I need to find some way to shake things up..._

***

Velvet kept her eyes carefully on Eleanor as the exorcist stood up. She'd managed to knock the other woman back on her heels both literally and metaphorically, but that wasn't even close to winning their little sparring match. The look of determination in her eyes was one Velvet recognized from the few times she'd taken a serious look at herself. Although it somehow seemed a lot more striking in those vivid green eyes-

Eleanor slammed her spear down, and a ring of blue light sprang up around her. Velvet shook herself and charged.

"An exorcist arte? I thought this was just to see which of us could outfight the other." The words were more a distraction (and maybe just a bit of a tease) than seriously meant - she wasn't going to reach Eleanor before she finished casting otherwise. Or probably either way...

"We never specifically agreed to that-!" Eleanor jerked the spear upward again as five spikes of ice appeared around its tip. "Paint the skies-"

Velvet spun as the exorcist finished her incantation to place her bandaged arm right in the path of the ice bolts. Her daemonic claw burst to life in time to absorb the impacts, only barely felt as slight jolts to the already-disquieting sensations of its unnatural musculature. She whipped her sword around in case Eleanor had followed up with a physical attack, but the exorcist had seemingly anticipated that reaction and was still keeping at a distance.

"Besides," Eleanor added with a grin, "I said that this time I intend to win." She began edging towards Velvet's left, spear still at the ready.

Velvet stepped to the right, matching Eleanor's pace. "You didn't answer my other question. Why I am the only one who's supposed to not shoulder too much? At least I knew, deep down, that I was being selfish. You were just one praetor, and you thought the Abbey actually wanted to save humanity, not just some world without real humans on it."

She actually wasn't entirely certain why that little outburst when they'd arrived in Meirchio bothered her so much. Certainly the sentiment reminded her of the puppets under Innominat's Suppression who'd insisted that they 'had' to die, to say nothing of Innominat's nearly successful attempt to get her to think the same way. But it raised her hackles more to hear it coming from Eleanor, for some reason, even though she knew that Eleanor really was trying to do the right thing and not just what some twisted idea of reason had forced upon her...

Probably it was just that Eleanor _should_ be fine at the end of this, no matter what happened to the therions and Laphicet and Velvet herself. That had to be it.

Eleanor's grin faded. "I'm not planning on dying. I just think... we have to stop the Suppression. No matter what it costs us."

"I know."

"If we didn't, I couldn't live with myself anyway."

"I _know._ "

"Then why are you so convinced _you're_ evil for doing the same thing?!"

Velvet snapped her sword back out of her bracer with a snarl. "Because I'm not-"

Eleanor lifted her spear and rushed forward. Velvet charged to meet her.

***

"Because I don't deserve-"

As Velvet gritted out the words, her right leg swung upward. This time a narrow blade did leap out of the edge of her boot. Eleanor twisted to let Velvet pass her on the left and slashed her spear sideways, intercepting Velvet's sword. At the same time, she kicked her own leg sideways, trying to hook Velvet's behind the knee. As they collided, Velvet slammed her bandaged hand against Eleanor's bare left arm, knocking it away from the spear haft.

They both lost their footing and tumbled across the floor several times, and came to a halt with Eleanor sprawled across Velvet's upper body. She immediately pushed aside the disconcerting mixture of hard and soft sensations under her and made sure her right hand was still gripping the spear. "I win."

Velvet looked up into her face with a completely nonplussed expression. "How do you 'win?'"

Eleanor smiled. "In a real fight, all I'd have to do is slash my spear's head back down and across right now, and I'd hit a vital point in your neck. Even daemons still have arteries, don't they?"

Velvet rolled her eyes. Eleanor felt a hand poke her in the side. "In a real fight, I'd just manifest my claw and devour you from head to toe in an instant before you could stop me."

"Now you're just being ridiculous!" A lock of hair that had come loose during the collision fell over Eleanor's face, and she lifted her free hand to brush it away. "At worst I'd say this is a draw."

She really ought to get up, she realized. This was undoubtedly a very awkward position to be lying in, especially if someone came in. But now that the first rush of adrenaline had started to wear off, she felt more than a little out of breath, and it couldn't hurt to take a few more moments to catch it.

Daemon or not, Velvet was quite obviously out of breath too. It was actually a little hard _not_ to watch...

Eleanor jerked her head away. "S-so. Like I was trying to say earlier, Velvet-"

The door opened.

***

Eleanor pushed herself off of Velvet and rose until she was sitting up, face reddening. Velvet used her left arm to push herself upright as well, enough so that she could make sure to give Magilou a Look. (She'd recognized the footsteps). If the witch made even one stupid comment-

But Magilou was looking entirely in Eleanor's direction. "Hey. Kamoana needs your help."

Eleanor rose to her feet, concern replacing embarrassment on her face. "Is she all right?"

"Oh, yeah, she's fine. I should really say _Dyle_ needs your help _with_ Kamoana. She's got a lot of energy to burn, and he keeps insisting that the cold is putting him into a torpor. Even though I don't think daemon lizards work like normal lizards." Magilou gave an elaborate shrug. "Little kids, huh? I would say they're like normin on sugar, but as someone who actually has a normin that's totally selling them short."

Velvet raised an eyebrow. "The kids or the normin?"

Magilou tilted her head. "I was going for ambiguous wording on purpose." She flipped a lock of hair away from her eyes in much the same way Eleanor had just a moment ago. "So, who won anyway?"

"Who were you betting on?" Eleanor said in a long-suffering tone as she stowed her spear away.

"I'm not a gambling _addict_ , you know," Magilou huffed. She turned to Velvet, and paused. "Hey, by the way - I get that it's nice and warm in here, but did you forget you're a daemon, Vel? Your face is **really** red."

Velvet gritted her teeth. "My face is _fine,_ Magilou."

"As you say!" Magilou skipped backwards to the door - which she hadn't stepped far from in the first place - and edged back into the corridor. Before she vanished from sight, though, she held up both hands to Velvet in a thumbs-up. The words she mouthed were easily readable.

"Sorry to interrupt!"

Velvet sighed as Eleanor turned back to face her. The exorcist cocked her head slightly, then dismissed whatever she was thinking. "So, um... Like I was saying..."

Velvet sighed again. "I know. Like you told me, I'm not going to give up. Not on me or Phi or anyone. Just... try not to be too much of a pain about it, all right? At least not until _you_ can stop beating yourself up for things you can't control."

Eleanor smiled sheepishly. "I do try..."

She was halfway to the exit before either of them noticed-

"Hey, Eleanor? Your jacket!"

"Right, sorry." Eleanor turned back to where she'd left it and pulled it back on. "I'd almost forgotten how cold it was out there..."

Velvet rolled her eyes. Conspicuously.

 _Very_ conspicuously.

Not that she was making it a point to do so or anything-

"Thanks."

"Thanks for the match, you mean?" Eleanor said. Velvet thought it was a bit hasty but then again she might just be reading too much into it-

"Yeah. That."

 _But maybe not **just** that,_ she added mentally as Eleanor turned and left.


End file.
